CAIRO: Human Rights Watch accused Egypt’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood Thursday of inciting religious hatred that led to the lynching of four Shiites in Cairo this week.

 

Residents of the suburb of Zawiyat Abu Musallem surrounded a house where a prominent Shiite preacher had arrived Sunday for a religious festival.

 

They attacked the guests, killing at least four and mutilating their bodies.

 

Police arrested eight people over the killings.

 

“The brutal sectarian lynching of four Shia comes after two years of hate speech against the minority religious group, which the Muslim Brotherhood condoned and at times participated in,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at New York-based Human Rights Watch.

 

The Muslim Brotherhood, the movement of President Mohammad Mursi, was not available for comment.

 

Conservative Sunnis, fearing the spread of Shiite Islam in Egypt, have increased their anti-Shiite rhetoric since a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in February, who called for a strategic alliance with Egypt.

 

“This horrific incident in Abu Musallem shows that Shiites can’t even gather in the privacy of their homes to celebrate and heightens fear of persecution among all religious minorities in Egypt,” Stork said.

 

Mursi condemned the crime but his liberal opponents accuse him and the Brotherhood of allowing ultra-conservative Salafist allies to whip up anti-Shiite sentiment in return for their support.

 

Mursi was a guest of honor this month at a rally where a preacher described Shiites as heretics.